


object permanence

by Yuu_chi



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, MT Escapee Prompto, MT Prompto Argentum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:33:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24716872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/pseuds/Yuu_chi
Summary: The hunt had been for a few stray imps - barely the work of a couple of hours, quick and easy, in and out.  It's not quick and easy. Turns out, it's not imps either.Or; Noctis is just trying to find a way to salvage his kingdom. He hadn't planned on adopting a half-traumatized war survivor living out of a dumpster.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 92
Kudos: 529





	1. Chapter 1

It’s been a solid week since they had more than two gil to rub together - nights full of rough sleeping in havens and cheap caravans - when Noctis finally puts his foot down with all the righteous kingly authority he can manage. 

“We’re taking a hunt,” he says. “Any hunt. Every hunt, if we have to. My back is killing me, and if I have to spend another week freezing my ass off in the tent, I’m going to snap.” 

Ignis pauses where he’s peeling a potato by the flickering campfire. The flames really highlight the exhausted bags growing beneath his eyes; the only flaw in his otherwise impeccable appearance. “I don’t know if that’s wise,” he says. “We would be better to stay away from towns for the time being. There’s been some sightings of the Empire -” 

“So we’ll pick up a hunt, kill some daemons, and then go hide out in a hotel immediately,” Noctis interrupts. At this point, Noctis isn’t above begging, no matter how unbecoming it might be for royalty. “C’mon, Specs. Even you must be sick of cooking over a camp stove by now.” 

Gladio glances up over the top of his ragged novel, and he and Ignis exchange a look that Noctis couldn’t decipher even if he wanted to. Carefully, Gladio dog ears a page and lowers the book. “Camping isn’t going to kill you, Princess.” 

“No, but _you_ might when I try and strangle you in your sleep,” Noctis says. “It hasn’t stopped raining in _days._ I can’t even remember what it feels like to be dry. I can barely remember what a _shower_ is.” 

“Come now, it’s not quite that bad,” Ignis says, but it’s offset by the thunderous crack in the distance. The ever so faint drizzle that had kept them damp all evening thickens into the beginnings of a downpour. Noctis peers sullenly up at him from beneath his hair, water running down his chilled cheeks. Beside him, the fire hisses and splutters, struggling to keep alight. Ignis sighs, closes his eyes for a moment, jaw set tightly, and then opens them again. “Perhaps,” he says, “it may be time to return to civilization after all. Just for a spell.” 

“There’s an outpost only a couple of miles out,” Gladio says, standing and gathering up their belongings to ferry into the relative dryness of the tent. “We can check there in the morning.” 

“Thank you,” Noctis says, fervently, and means it.

.

The nearest Crow’s Nest is a forgotten spit of a thing on the endless highway bordering Alstor Slough, and when they ask if there’s any work going the woman behind the counter sighs, hands on her hips. “It’s not much,” she says, “but we’ve been having trouble with the bins at night.” 

“The… bins?” Noctis repeats blankly. 

“We’re not a big outpost,” she says, almost apologetic. “Don’t even appear on most maps you can buy around these parts. We can’t afford to have the lights reach out as far as the dumpsters. For the past few weeks whenever I get here in the morning I find them an absolute mess. I’m pretty sure it’s imps. It’s not the first time it’s happened. They love a good bit of mischief.” 

“Has anybody been injured?” Ignis asks. 

“Not that I know of,” she says, uneasy, “but the other day I found a trail of blood leading away into the scrubland. Looked pretty bad. If somebody passing by wound up in trouble, I’d feel awful about it.” 

The reward isn’t exactly what Noctis would call generous, but it’ll be enough to get them a roof over their heads for a couple of nights, and if all he has to do is take down a couple of overly friendly imps, then he thinks he’s getting the better end of the deal here. Not to mention that if some unsuspecting traveler really has already fallen prey to them, Noctis can’t, in good conscious, let them linger about unchecked. 

There’s not much else to do while they wait for night to roll in, so they return to the damp campsite settled atop the haven, and Noctis sneaks in a very gratifying nap while Gladio and Ignis rattle about outside; discussing their next move, their next paycheck, the next time they can bring themselves to glance towards the smoky skyline that once housed the high reaching spires of Insomnia. 

Noctis drags his sleeping bag over his head, burrows beneath his pillow, and pretends very hard that he can’t hear anything at all. 

When evening hits they make the trip back to the outpost; Regalia left safely parked in the nearest bay to the haven, out of the way of any possible trouble. Noctis isn’t necessarily expecting any, but he hadn’t necessarily been expecting to be abruptly orphaned on what was supposed to be a pleasant road trip to his own wedding either, so he thinks it’s probably better safe than sorry.

The outpost at night is somehow different than it had seemed in the kindness of the day - the anti-daemon lights flooding the petrol station and the accompanying Crow’s Nest with stinging, artificial brightness, and the windows of the store dark and depressingly empty. Before he left Insomnia, Noctis doesn’t think that he really understood how pervasive darkness was; creeping in at the edges the moment your back was turned and trailing selfish fingers along your shadows. 

“Where did she say these dumpsters were?” Gladio asks, peering through the gloom. 

“Back a ways, I believe,” Ignis says, inclining his head towards a thin service road that lead to a tin shack bordered by a set of rusty looking dumpsters. There’s a single lamp post next to it, but even from the distance Noctis can tell it’s been a long time since it’d housed anything other than cobwebs where a bulb should be. “To keep the wildlife from getting too friendly with the patrons.” 

“Yeah. Instead they wound up with a daemon problem. Don’t really think they thought that one through,” Gladio snorts. 

Ignis gives him an aggrieved look. “In any case, I believe we should pick a vantage point to watch from. They probably won’t approach if they see a crowd standing guard.” 

There’s a covered parking bay beside the Crow’s Nest - empty, of course, with all the employees gone - and they settle in the corner of it, paying half attention to the distant specter of the bins and the rest of it to the ragged deck of cards Ignis seemingly summons from absolutely nowhere. The moon climbs higher across the horizon as Noctis gets his ass royally kicked in a game he’s almost certain Gladio is making up the rules to, and he’s just distracted enough that he doesn’t immediately notice they have company until he sees a faint flash of blue from the corner of his eye and looks up to see Ignis with a dagger in his hand. 

There’s the sound of creaking tin and rustling by the shack and Noctis squints through the shadows to see a dark, blurry shape leaning up and over the dumpster. Quietly, he says, “That looks bigger than an imp.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Gladio grunts, getting smoothly to his feet. He opens his hand and his sword appears in a glimmer, resting over the breadth of his shoulders. “If we can see it, we can kill it.” 

Noctis leaves the cards on the asphalt where they lay - he’d had a shit hand anyway - and leads the way forward as silently as he can. He twists his wrist and feels the familiar shiver of his magic as he pulls his Engine Blade from the Armiger and into his waiting palm. 

Ahead, the shadow by the shack hasn’t noticed them yet. It’s tall, Noctis thinks as they creep closer, far taller than an imp. Not a good sign. Only the worst kinds of daemons stand as tall as a person on equally steady legs. They’d come here to sort out a scavenger problem - they hadn’t exactly signed up to fight a hobgoblin or a fucking reaper. 

The distance between them shrinks, and as they draw near enough to smell the stink of sunbaked garbage it becomes apparent that the thing before them _isn’t_ a hobgoblin or a reaper. Noctis can just barely see a mess of blonde hair leaning into the dumpster - the rise and fall of a skinny back beneath a shirt that is little more than rags, the glint of a gun hanging from a narrow hip. 

Noctis heart sinks. Beside him, Ignis throws out a hand and the lot of them come to an abrupt, silent stop. No, it’s not a daemon. It is, arguably, something far worse. 

Up above, the clouds choking the moon choose this precise moment to part, and the lengths of their shadows appear like magic on the ground. The long lines of black falling from their feet along the rusted siding of the shack, the dumpsters - along the skinny figure who goes still as stone for half a second, something clutched in his hands falling from his slackened grip to the grass below, before it whips around.

For a second, Noctis stares down a gaunt face and what seems like an endless array of freckles - and then he stares down the barrel of a gun. It all happens so quick that he doesn’t get a chance to do anything other than think ‘ _oh that’s not good’_ before the gun kicks back with a thunderous recoil. Thankfully, Gladio isn’t nearly as slow, and Noctis winces as the bullet rattles loudly against the very tip of Gladio’s hastily extended sword, swerving off course and over his shoulder. 

“What the _fuck?”_ Noctis says, staring into a pair of startled blue eyes that look almost as surprised as he feels, but this time when the gun rises he has enough sense to phase out of the way, rolling into the grass beside Ignis. 

“Oh no you don’t,” Gladio snaps, and Noctis looks up to see him slamming their mysterious gunman into the shack with both his hands around the boy’s wrists. The gun falls to the ground by their feet and Ignis swoops in to kick it aside, putting himself between Noctis and the fight. 

“Gladio, go easy,” Ignis says. “I fear one good punch from you might cause him to expire immediately.” 

The boy is kicking madly, trying desperately to worm free from Gladio’s grip, but Ignis hadn’t been wrong - he looks one stiff breeze away from being knocked clear to the ground, and Gladio is roughly the size of a small behemoth. He’s going nowhere fast, that much is certain. Still, Gladio cranes his head to look at Ignis incredulously. “Go easy on him? He _shot_ at Noct.” 

Uneasy, Noctis gets to his feet and tries to edge closer only for Ignis to grab his shoulder and wrench him a step backwards. With the welcoming flood of moonlight Noctis can get a clear view of their supposed imp problem for the first time and he realizes that no, he hadn’t been mistaken, and yes, the thing Gladio has pinned to the wall is really nothing more than a skinny, squirming _human._

He’s rake thin and sheet white, like he hasn’t seen the sun in recent memory. The blonde hair Noctis had first noticed hangs limply in his face, untidy and equally as unclean.

“I believe we just scared him,” Ignis says, voice low and smooth like trying not to spook a stray. “Coming up behind him with our weapons drawn like that? I can scarcely blame him.” 

“Maybe if he hadn’t been rummaging through the damn dumpsters in the first place -” 

“Gladio,” Ignis says sharply, and Gladio closes his mouth sourly. To the boy, Ignis says, tone fair kinder, “We did not mean any harm. We had been… misinformed.” 

The boy doesn’t give any indication he’s so much as heard him. He’s still pulling brutally at Gladio’s grip, feet kicking. His face is pale, jaw clenched tightly and eyes burning bright enough to make Noctis wary. A feral little thing, straining against the trap caught on its brittle bones.

“Uh,” Noctis says, feeling vastly unequipped for this, “what do we… you know, do with him?” 

“Dave mentioned something about a Hunter hideout being not too far from here,” Gladio says. “I vote we truss him up and - _son of a bitch!”_

Gladio’s grip on his wrists springs free and the boy drops to his feet, making a mad lurch towards the gap between Noctis and Ignis in a clear break for the freedom of the tree line in the distance. Noctis just barely manages to throw out an arm to catch him around the chest and stop him. His skin is positively clammy to touch, and as the boy stumbles back, Noctis experiences a panicked moment of wondering whether he’d hurt him. It’d been less like touching another person and more like touching an imitation of one carefully constructed from twigs and newspaper and just as liable to crumble.

The boy’s back hits the shack, hands pressed to the wall either side of him, and he sweeps all three of them with a frantic gaze. 

“Gladio?” Ignis asks without looking up. 

“He _bit_ me,” Gladio snaps, and Noctis can see a crooked circle of red blooming across the inside of his arm. “Kid’s got guts, I’ll give him that.” 

“He doesn’t look like a kid,” Noctis says, although with how skinny he is and the amount of dirt covering his face it’s almost impossible to tell. “I think he’s about our age.” 

“Well, regardless, he’s certainly no imp,” Ignis says. 

“Yeah, no shit,” says Gladio. “He’s some kind of feral wolf child or something. Probably raised by a wild voretooth.” 

Throughout all this, Noctis keeps his eyes on the boy - on the frightened way his eyes dart between them as they speak. Impossible to tell whether he’s looking for a threat or a way out, but clear all the same that he’s not nearly as feral as Gladio suggests. Honestly? The more Noctis looks, the less he sees any kind of threat and the more he sees a really terrified kid who looks like he’s been through some serious shit and doesn’t really deserve two Crownsguard backing him to a wall. 

Noctis flicks his wrist and his sword vanishes in a shimmer of blue. 

“Noct, don’t you _dare_ -” 

“Highness, I do not believe that is necessarily -” 

Noctis ignores them both, taking a half step forward. The boy’s eyes snap to him immediately and Noctis holds up his hands, emphasizing his empty palms. “Hey,” he says, trying to sound as unthreatening as possible. “I just wanna talk, okay? I’m not gonna do anything.” 

He can’t honestly tell whether the boy can understand him, but he doesn’t make a lunge for the gun on the ground, so Noctis tentatively considers it a victory. He can feel Ignis and Gladio hovering behind his shoulders, and he discretely sends his elbow back, hitting somebody in the stomach. “A little space, please,” he hisses. 

“Noct,” Ignis says reluctantly, “I don’t think you ought to -” 

“You said not to spook him - I’m trying not to spook him. It doesn’t help with the both of you crowding us like that.” 

He thinks they’re going to fight him, but after a long, dragging moment he hears them step back, just an inch. An inch is more than enough. Noctis grew up with the eyes of an entire kingdom watching his every move and barely enough room to _breathe_ \- he’s well acquainted with taking an inch and spinning it into a mile. 

To the boy, he says, “I don’t know what you were doing going through the bins, but it’s freaking out the people who work here.” Noctis jerks his thumb back in the direction of the outpost. “It’s not safe, either. No lights out here. That’s how you get turned into daemon chow.” 

The boy hesitates, eyes skittering down to his feet as if on impulse and then back up again, but not quite quick enough for Noctis to miss. For the first time, he looks down at what the boy had been holding before they’d snuck up on him and feels his stomach turn. 

A half-eaten burger stares back at him, wrapped in a stained Kenny Crow wrapper. Noctis has never seen something less appealing in all of his life, but the way the boy had glanced at it had been downright _yearning._ It does nothing at all to help the queasy roil in his gut. It’s an effort to keep his voice light and friendly, but somehow he manages. “So food, huh? You were just looking for something to eat.” 

Behind him, Gladio curses, and Noctis can perfectly imagine the appalled look on Ignis’s face. 

“How about this. We’ve got heaps of food back at camp. My friend Ignis - you see him there, the one with the glasses? - he’s a real good cook. He could probably make you anything under the sun, all you gotta do is ask. I bet it’d be better than...” _Diplomacy,_ Noctis reminds himself. _You’re trained in diplomacy._ The burger stares at him from the ground and Noctis’s already shaky diplomacy fails him. “... that.” 

For a moment, he could swear he sees the boy hesitate - an uncertain gleam in his wary eyes, a tightening in his jaw. It’s for all of a split second, but then then it’s gone just as quick, shuttered behind an impenetrable expression of disinterest. 

“I don’t think he’s taking the bait,” Gladio mutters behind him. 

If they tried, they could probably knock him out and _take_ him wherever they need to go. Sure, he’s scrappy, but the three of them are Crown City trained and - maybe more importantly - seem to have eaten more than garbage the past week. It’d be so easy. It’d be for his own good. 

Noctis can’t make himself do it. 

“Alright,” Noctis says, and steps away. The boy looks at him in surprise. “If you don’t want to come, that’s fine. But we’ll be staying here a while. You see that smoke in the distance?” Noctis points, and the boy turns, glancing in the direction of the haven. “We’re camped there. Probably will be for a few more days. Come on by any time if you want a decent meal.” 

It’s an effort to pull himself away, putting his back to the boy as if he’s not at all concerned about leaving behind somebody in his state to the mercy of the wilds, but Noctis has long perfected the art of nonchalance and somehow he manages it. Ignis and Gladio fall into step beside him, and it’d be so very easy for the boy to pick up his gun and shoot them in the back, and Noctis hopes that he won’t. 

No bullets hit them. Their feet hit the edge of the light gathered around the outpost, and Noctis breathes a sigh of relief.

“Gonna be here for a while, huh?” Gladio asks. “Whatever happened to sleeping in the lap of luxury?”

“Shut up,” Noctis says, shoving him, but Gladio drops a hand atop his head, screwing up his hair. 

“I’m just messing with you,” he says, more serious. “I think you made the right call, Noct.” 

“The only call, perhaps,” Ignis says. “If Gladio hadn’t stopped it, I fear that bullet was set to land right between your eyes. Given his aptitude with a gun, I do not relish the idea of giving him a reason to pick it up again.” 

“He’s not going to shoot us,” Noctis says. “You were the one who said we just startled him. So we’ll be more careful next time.” 

Ignis does no look impressed with his reasoning. “Yes. Well. For the time being, let us head back to camp. I anticipate we have some long nights ahead. We may as well get what sleep we can.” 

They turn towards the camp, putting the small station at their backs until the morning. Unable to help himself, Noctis peers over his shoulder and back the way they’d come; in the distance, an animal yowls, but all that greets him is yawning, empty blackness. 


	2. Chapter 2

When they head back to the diner in the morning, the woman behind the counter is ever so grateful to hear that they’ve solved her imp problem. 

“Thank the Astrals,” she says. “I was gettin’ real worried I was going to have to call somebody in at this rate. You lot have saved me a whole world of trouble.” 

Noctis feels a _little_ bad about lying to her, but not bad enough to turn down the reward money. Ignis doesn’t so much as blink as he accepts it, far too practical to be pestered by something as ultimately pointless as a guilty conscience. _Will a conscience keep us fed and clothed?_ he’d said the previous night when Noctis had asked what they’d tell their tipser. _Will it keep us hale and healthy? She asked us to solve her problem, and I dare say we have. I see no reason to turn away her gratitude._

Once, Noctis knows, Ignis would have had all kinds of opinions about what a king should and should not expect from his citizens. Those opinions had long since been ground to dust beneath the ever-spinning wheels of the Regalia as it took them further and further from the grandeur and comfort of Insomnia. 

They stay for long enough to pick idly at a plate of fries, listening to the drone of the radio wedged by the grill - _still no word on whether the body of the prince will be recovered, believed lost in the ruins of the city -_ and Gladio strikes up idle conversation with a passing hunter parked in the lot outside, wares spread gleaming on the racks in the back of his truck. He’ll need a new sword soon, Noctis thinks. Masamune has been looking rather dim lately, and no amount of sharpening can save a blade that’s starting to chip. 

Beside him, Ignis turns the page of the dusty newspaper he’d pilfered from the counter and unsubtly nudges the plate of steamed vegetables he’d seen fit to order in Noctis’s direction. 

“Iggy,” he sighs. 

Ignis turns another page. “It isn’t good to turn one’s nose up at a fresh meal, Highness,” he says. “After all, you may never know where your next one will come from.” 

“It’ll come from you. It always comes from you. And it’ll also have fucking vegetables in it because you’re the  _worst.”_

Ignis peers over the rim of his glasses. “Far be it for me to stop our King from succumbing to scurvy of all things before he so much as manages to take the throne. What _will_ people say of me?” 

Noctis scowls, reluctantly spearing some broccoli, but when Ignis’s back is turned, he hides it beneath a few stray fries. Gladio lumbers back in the door not a moment later, looking quite pleased. “Alright,” he says. “Up and at ‘em. Got us a hunt.” 

Noctis groans leaning back in the booth. “We just _did_ a hunt.” 

“That wasn’t a hunt,” Gladio says. “That was babysitting or something. A hunt means you get to _stab_ something.” 

Across the table, Ignis folds his paper and sets it neatly down. Noctis is almost certain the pages look crisper than they’d been before he’d picked it up. “Come now,” he says. “If we’re quick about it, we shall be back at the haven in time to make plans for potential visitors this evening.” 

The look he shoots Noctis is significant, and rather suddenly Noctis feels guilty about his shunned broccoli. 

When was the last time the half feral boy from the other night had something that didn’t come from a garbage can? Something green and fresh, if not exactly tasty? Appetite suddenly vastly diminished, Noctis pushes the plate away and swings himself out of the booth and to his feet. “Alright,” he says. “What are we hunting?” 

The answer is daggerquill, unfortunately. It takes them the better part of the day to clear the unruly pack from where they’d set up a nest too close to the highway, and they come out of the battle bruised and cranky; Gladio especially, who’s heavy sword can scarcely reach an enemy with wings.

“Please tell me this is going to pay more than the imp hunt,” Noctis says as they trek back for their reward. 

“Stop whining, anything is better than nothing,” Gladio says, but the thunderous expression on his face is a fairly good indicator that his patience is stretched remarkably thin. Noctis isn’t surprised. He’d needed two potions to pull through at the end there, and the only thing bigger than Gladio himself is his pride.

Ignis pushes his glasses up his nose as he climbs into the driver’s seat. “Regardless, at least I have some ideas for tonight’s menu,” he muses. “Perhaps some soup. Light on the stomach, but heavy in nutrition.” 

“Whatever you say, Iggy,” Noctis says, slumping in the back and popping the collar of his shirt to try and hide from the sun. “Wake me when we’re back at camp.” 

Noctis mostly sleeps through their quick pitstop, waking only long enough to pump some gas while Gladio collects their reward from the passing hunter. Ignis disappears into the station to pay and remerges with a paper bag tucked in his arms. 

Standing on his toes, Noctis tries to peer inside, but Ignis swats him away with the ease of look practice. “What’s that?” 

“Just some supplies,” Ignis says. “We’re running a tad low.”

Noctis shrugs and climbs back into the car, sliding along the bench until he can comfortably kick his feet up on the seat. Ignis shoots him a look - Noctis knows he’s pushing it with his dirty boots up like this, but he’s _tired_ \- but ultimately chooses to say nothing. A moment later Gladio returns, handing off a bundle of gil to Ignis as he presses into the passenger seat. “He threw in extra for being so quick. Should hold us over for now.” 

“Are you sure it wasn’t just because he felt bad about your black eye?” Noctis asks. 

“Sounds like somebody wants to help get some wood for the fire tonight,” Gladio says without turning around, and Noctis hurries to twist away, pretending at sleep. 

It’s a little surreal to be returning to the same haven two nights running, but Noctis tries not to let it bother him. Honestly speaking, it’s kind of amazing how quickly you can adjust to anything with just the right amount of pressure. Twenty years Noctis lived his life in Insomnia, tied to the Citadel by an invisible rope, and now barely two months on the road have been enough to break him of any and all home comforts. 

Gladio makes good on his threat and drags Noctis out of the car to round up some wood in the brackish forest that borders the campsite, and when they stride back Ignis is methodically going through what reminds of their food, preparing to make dinner as the sky begins to bruise at the horizon. 

Noctis is allowed to crawl into the tent for an evening nap, but even with all of the sleeping bags piled atop him to ward off the encroaching chill, he finds himself wide awake, staring at the domed ceiling above him, listening to the quiet voices outside. Soothing, but also unsettling. 

He could have been in a hotel right now; fresh water and fresher sheets. How long has it been since he washed his hair? Five days? Six? If he were back home - 

He throws an arm across his face, cutting that thought of before it has the chance to lay down thick, awful roots in the tender pit of his stomach. At some point, he’s sure, the pain will dull to an ache. It has to. The alternative is too much to consider. 

Outside, the sun sinks fully, and Gladio unzips the tent to stick his head in. “Hey, your royal laziness. Rise and shine.” 

“Yeah, Yeah,” Noctis grouses, rubbing at his eyes like he’s managed anything more than an hour of being alone with the uncomfortably sharp edges of his thoughts. He wrestles himself free from his collection of blankets and stumbles outside, boots catching on rope tying the tent to the rock beneath them. 

Ignis is by the crappy fold out table, stirring something that smells positively _divine_ atop the camp stove. He looks up and smiles when he catches Noctis drifting closer on impulse. “Shall I take that as approval?” 

“I’ll say,” Noctis says, admiring. “I wasn’t sure when you said soup, but you didn’t tell me it was going to be  _good.”_

“I feel I ought to be offended that you expected anything but.” 

Noctis shrugs and flops down into the chair nearest the fire. “At least you can’t sneak vegetables into  _soup.”_

“Hmm,” Ignis says, thoughtful, and Noctis dearly hopes he’s not taking that as a challenge. 

The sweet, peppery scent of food drifts across the haven, and the soft crackle of the fire warms all the tired bones in Noctis’s body. He slumps lower in his chair, gazing out past the faint glow of the runestones that keep the daemons at bay, looking for any hint in the darkness that they’re not as alone as they seem. 

Ignis leaves the soup to bubble far longer than he’d usually permit. None of them comment on it, instead trading idle, distracted chatter as they sit. Gladio is sharpening one of Ignis’s daggers for him, and Ignis himself is nursing the same half empty can of ebony he’s had on hand all evening. Noctis tucks himself into a ball on his chair and keeps quiet watch. 

After what feels like an eternity, he asks, “Do you think he’ll show up?” 

Ignis turns a page in the book he’d borrowed from Gladio. “It’s still early yet. Be patient.” 

Noctis shifts restlessly. “What if he doesn’t know where we are?” 

Gladio snorts. “A kid that hungry? He’ll smell Iggy’s cooking from a mile off. Besides, the smoke’s kind of hard to miss.” 

Noctis knows they’re right. They usually are. It’s their _job_ to be right about pretty much everything. It doesn’t soothe the jittery feeling clawing at his nerves in the slightest. With the distractions of daylight it’d been easy to allow his attention to drift; pulled away by hunts, conversation, the rattle of his own thoughts. In the smothering darkness, all he can see is the hungry look on the boy’s lean face and how steady his hands had been when he held the gun in Noctis’s face. 

Is he Lucian, Noctis wonders? The blonde of his hair and the particular blue of his eyes said no. Tenebraen? Nif? Either way, it didn’t matter. He was on Lucian soil, and that made him Noctis’s responsibility. These days, Noctis’s life is pretty much a never ending list of all the ways he’d managed to fail his people, but he can manage this much at least - make sure the boy is fed and safe and not eaten by Astrals damned daemons in the middle of the night. If he failed that, then he really isn’t much of a king at all. 

The night stretches on. Gladio finishes with Ignis’s daggers and trades them back for the ragged paperback Ignis seems only too relieved to part with. Ignis gets to his feet and goes to tend to the soup, adding something that makes it smell even better, if at all possible. Noctis slumps in his chair and, despite his best intentions, dozes in fits and bursts. 

He doesn’t even realize he’s sleeping until a hand lands on his wrist, soft and familiar, and he flicks his eyes open to see Ignis in the chair beside him. He presses a finger to his lips, and nods to the edge of the haven. Noctis turns, following his gaze, and the relief hit him with all the subtleness of a truck. 

There, at the very corner of where the browned grass turned to slate, is a small shape, almost indistinguishable from the darkness. As Noctis watches, a pale, anxious face emerges, illuminated by the light cast from the fire. Blue eyes skitter to where Gladio is slouched in his chair, and then back to Ignis and Noctis. 

The boy looks wound tight enough to snap, and Noctis scrambles for something - anything - to say that won’t spook him away before they can even convince him to set foot in the haven. Thankfully, Ignis beats him to it. 

“Good evening,” he says calmly, getting to his feet slowly. “Would you care for something to eat at all? We were just about to have dinner ourselves and there’s more than enough to go around.” 

The boy still hasn’t stepped pasted the glowing runes that mark their camp safe from the cruel claws of the night; watching warily as Ignis heads to the stove, making a convincing show of being utterly unconcerned with the stranger lurking only paces away, watching them all like he expects them to jump him at any moment. Noctis can see the gun at his hip, the unpolished silver smudged red in the firelight. 

Noctis clears his throat and the boy’s attention jerks to him. Awkwardly, Noctis gestures to the empty chair beside him. “You can sit down. If you want.” 

The boy blinks; a slow up-and-down of spider web lashes. He makes no move to approach, hovers as unobtrusively as a fog over a chilled lake. Noctis would almost doubt he even understands him if it weren’t for the keenness in his gaze. 

Across the fire, Gladio says, “You don’t have to sit with us if you don’t want to, but you can’t stay there. You’ll attract daemons. In or out - pick one.” 

Noctis whips around to scowl at him, but Gladio meets his look impassively, utterly unmoved. “Don’t pressure him.” 

“I’m not,” Gladio says. “If we do this your way, he’ll stay there all night, and then how are you gonna feel when some voretooth comes and snaps him up?” 

Poorly, Noctis imagines, but that’s not the point. He hears a shuffle behind him and he turns to see the boy has _finally_ crossed the runes around the haven. Up close like this, Noctis can see the way his bare feet leave bloodied smudges on the rocks beneath them and his stomach turns fiercely. He opens his mouth to say something, but Gladio catches his eye and silently shakes his head, and Noctis reluctantly closes it again, feeling frustrated even as he strives to keep his expression bland. 

If he asks if he’s injured, the boy probably won’t say anything anyway. If he asks to help, almost certainly he’ll send him running. Noctis has fed stray cats less skittish than this. 

Ignis returns, balancing a set of bowls in his hands with ease. “Here,” he says, passing a bowl to Noctis. Then, turning to the boy, he offers the other one to him, being careful to maintain a respectable space between them. “I can only hope it’s up to standard. I’ve had to improvise many of my recipes, I’m afraid.” 

The boy looks at Ignis and then to the bowl. After a long moment he reaches out, fingers tentatively curling around the edges as if he expects it to be snatched away at the last moment, and lifts it from Ignis’s grip. He pauses, bowl in his hands, and looks back to Noctis anxiously. It takes Noctis a second to realize. 

“Oh,” he says, and dips his spoon in. It tastes exactly as good as he’d expected. He can see the boy watching him, shoulders relaxing. Noctis tries for a small smile. “It’s good,” he says, in what he hopes is an encouraging tone. “Warm, though, so be careful.” 

The boy’s attention snaps back to the bowl in his hands. Ignis lets out a sigh of relief and steps closer, holding out a spoon. “Here, if you - oh dear.” 

He’s not quick enough. The boy has the bowl to his mouth, tipping it back and drinking like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. A trickle spills down his chin, dripping to stain the collar of his already ragged shirt. When Noctis had said the soup was warm, he’d really meant _hot,_ and he winces, expecting to see it all spluttered back up, but the boy doesn’t so much as pause, shows no indication at all that his throat must be burning. He doesn’t stop until the bowl is empty in his shaky hands. 

Noctis glances at Ignis. His mouth is thin pressed, brows drawn tight. Usually, Ignis looks gratified to see people enjoying his food in a way Noctis can’t quite understand. He can see none of that now; only keen worry and an equally sharp thoughtfulness. Before the boy can catch the look he clears it, smoothing it into an impassive but welcoming expression, and says, “I’m glad to see you enjoyed it. Would you like some water, too? You must be quite parched.” 

The boy hesitates. He looks to the bowl in his hands and then up again. The tight, hungry look on his pinched face is still there, and Noctis has the sense that he’d like to ask for more, but he doesn’t, and Ignis doesn’t offer. For a long moment he and Ignis just look at each other, the tension wound tight enough to snap, and then - miracle of miracles - the boy nods. 

Noctis lets out a breath that had been caught in his chest. He _can_ understand them. He’d thought so, but the relief of _knowing_ it is great. 

Ignis smiles and reaches out a hand for the empty bowl. “I’ll take that for you,” he says, and the boy reluctantly parts with it like it’s worth its weight in gold. 

Noctis glances down at the soup swaying in his hands and then back up again. He wants to offer it to him, stuff it in his skinny hands and tell him to go buck wild, but Ignis passes by him on the way to the crowded camp bench and shakes his head subtly. “Better not,” he says quietly. “Eat, your Highness.” 

Noctis doesn’t want to eat. Seeing the desperate way their guest had drank down the soup as if it were the first thing in his lifetime he’d ever been given had robbed him of his appetite. Still, he can sense eyes on him, watchful and worried, and Noctis strives to keep his expression loose as he picks up his spoon again. Next to him, Gladio thanks Ignis as he passes by again, showing absolutely no hesitation at all about digging into his own meal.

“Here,” Ignis says, offering the boy a half-full water bottle. “Take it slow, though. Wouldn’t do to upset your stomach.” 

For a moment, Noctis thinks the boy is going to turn it down in the way he’d refused to eat until Noctis had tried it first, but after a lingering second he takes it. The small seed of trust is far more than Noctis had thought they’d be offered and he looks hurriedly back to his soup to hide the smile he can feel creeping across his face.

Ignis leaves him be, sinking into the remaining chair across the fire with his own meal. It’s a little surreal to have a stranger in their camp, just sitting at the very edge of the haven like this. He’d have thought it’d have unsettled Ignis’s iron manners fiercely to ignore a guest so blatantly, but it’s not like Noctis doesn’t get what he’s doing either. After all, he’s befriended enough distrustful cats haunting the Citadel gardens over the years to know the best way to catch a stray is to let them come to you, not the other way around. 

Ignis folds his legs, props his bowl atop his knee, and says, “Gladio, I believe you were telling me about the rumors you heard concerning a possible tomb?” 

Gladio doesn’t miss so much as beat as he replies, “Just some rumors, but I think we should be aiming south.” 

Noctis stirs with his spoon and says, “Not like we can get much further north anyway. I’ll be happy to just be out of Alstor Slough.” 

They pass idle chatter back and forth, debating their next move with no real sense of urgency, and from the corner of his eye Noctis can see the boy starting to relax; his skinny shoulders dipping with relief, and once or twice he inches forward, closer to the warmth of the fire and away from the midnight chill at his back. He sips at his water while they chat, and Noctis is just starting to think they might be able to maybe coax him closer when his face goes abruptly pale and he doubles over, water bottle falling from his hand to splash the shale beneath him. 

“Are you okay?” Noctis rockets to his feet and manages to take all of two steps closer before the boy twists where he sits and pukes all over the front of his shirt, arms tight around his seizing stomach. 

“Ah,” Ignis says behind him, sounding unsurprised. “I was worried this might happen.” 

“What?” Noctis snaps. “You knew he was going to -” he waves his hand at where the boy sits, pale and shocked looking, as if he’s only just realizing what he’d done. 

Ignis pushes his glasses further up his nose. “You can hardly expect a stomach unused to a solid meal to know what to do with it when… overwhelmed as it may have been.” 

Noctis thinks on the way the boy had knocked back the soup like he was trying to drink somebody under the table and winces. It hadn’t even occurred to him, and he feels like a blind idiot. 

“I’ll get him a fresh shirt,” Gladio says from behind, and Noctis can hear the rustle of the tent unzipping. 

The boy’s still frozen where he sits, and he looks so pathetic that Noctis’s heart twinges something fierce. “Hey,” he says, edging a step closer. “Hey, you’re fine, okay? You just… overate, Ignis says. And trust me, when Ignis says something it’s usually true.” 

Big blue eyes glance up at him, and the boy’s shoulders tense like somebody’s wound a key in his back, all the slack from before vanishing in an instant. Noctis freezes where he stands, making sure to keep his hands empty and in sight. “I just want to check on you,” he reassures him. “Gladio - that’s the big guy - he’s getting you a fresh shirt. Is that okay?” 

The boy stares at him. He’s still pale, but there’s a flush in his face now, warming the pallid ridges of his cheekbones. He looks _mortified_ and Noctis wishes he knew what to say to assure him it’s really not a big deal. Somebody puking a little isn’t even the worst thing he’s seen in the past twenty-four _hours._ The boy hesitates, glances over Noctis’s shoulder towards Ignis, and then opens his mouth. 

For a split second Noctis really thinks the boy is finally - _finally -_ going to speak. And then his eyes widen like coins and he gags, throwing a hand up over his mouth and swallowing thickly.

“Ignis?” Noctis asks. 

“On it,” Ignis says, and vanishes back into the camp for a fresh bottle of water. 

“Is it okay if I come closer?” Noctis asks, feeling helpless. “You don’t have - you don’t have to speak. Just nod. Or shake your head, I guess. Is that okay?” 

The boy doesn’t do either. He just stares at Noctis, guarded and clearly pained, looking like he’s about to turn tail and run any moment, and Noctis is terrified that if he _does_ they’ll never lure him back here again. Then where will they be? Stuck driving all around Alstor Slough looking for someone who seems like he knows exactly how _not_ to be found? Heading off to Altissia without knowing if the kid was okay or even _alive?_

There’s movement behind him and Noctis looks up to see Gladio looming over his shoulder, one of Noctis’s older shirts in his hands. “Here,” he says, passing it to Noctis. “You give it to him. I don’t wanna spook the kid.” 

Noctis takes it, fists knotting in the fabric, and when he turns around the boy seems like he’s backed away, but he freezes when Noctis’s eyes land on him like a deer in the headlights. “Hey, no,” Noctis says, holding out the shirt. “I just - I wanna give you this, okay? It’s not exactly fresh off the rack, but…” He can’t think of a polite way to say  _it’s not covered in puke and also only has the holes you need to stick your head and arms through._

The boy looks at the shirt and then up at Noctis. Noctis keeps very, very still, and after a moment the boy reaches out with a shaking hand. His fingers snag in the fabric, and he pulls it slowly from Noctis’s loose grip, like he’s expecting Noctis to jerk it away at the last moment like a cruel prank, and Noctis wants to murder every single person that ever taught him to look like that. 

Ignis returns and when he offers the water bottle, the boy takes that as well, and the uncertainty on his face melts into something very close to confusion. Noctis tries for a reassuring smile and has the prickling thought it’s probably not exactly convincing. It’s not really an expression that comes naturally to him. He’s usually the one _being_ comforted, not the other way around, and he doesn’t know how he feels about the turnabout. “No big deal, hey? Do you wanna get changed? Maybe you’ll feel up to having some more soup later?” 

The boy’s expression is pinched, and Noctis wants to know what he said wrong, but before he can press - _gently -_ there’s a loud snapping sound from the forest at the other side of the campsite and they all jerk, looking behind them. Far off, there’s a growl of some daemon or another, but it’s far away, and Noctis lets loose a sigh. 

He turns back to face the boy, only to discover he’s gone; nothing more than a faint shape backing into the darkness. Noctis stares; for a moment their gazes lock, and the moonlight paints his pallid face silver. Then he passes into the gentle grip of the forest, and all that’s left of his visit at all is a half-empty bottle of water rocking slowly on the ground and a few watery red footprints at the edge of the haven. 

Noctis stares out into the darkness as frustration boils hot in his stomach. 

Gladio’s hand lands on his shoulder. “Hey,” he says, jostling him lightly. “He might not have kept much of it down, but at least he ate. And he’s got something to wear that’s not covered in filth. We’ll stay here another night. Who knows? He might come back. We’ll see.” 

Noctis knows Gladio’s probably right. It doesn’t make him feel any better. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I guess we’ll see.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm ECSTATIC that people are still interested in reading a fic for a game that came out *checks watch* nearly four years ago. Thank you all so much for the comments on the previous chapter. 
> 
> twitter: @doingwritebyme  
> tumblr: glenflower


	3. Chapter 3

Noctis does not sleep well that night. He can’t stop the rapid whirling of his thoughts, the uncomfortable way they trip over themselves, spiraling into something vicious. 

What if that had been their last chance? What if the boy had been scared away for good this time? Was it even possible to coax somebody that skittish any nearer? What about the blood Ignis had to scrub from the edges of their camp before it attracted any beasts? Was he going to bleed out before Noctis could even think of a way to help? 

Behind him, Gladio lets out a chainsaw snore and rolls over without so much as waking up, and Noctis gives sleep up for a lost cause. 

When he emerges from the tent, the sun is just starting to bruise at the horizon. The fire is mostly dead at this point, but Noctis crouches down beside it anyway, warming his hands on what remains of the embers. He squints out past the edges of the haven, but all he can see if the endless bramble of the wilderness around him. 

There’s the soft sound of the zipper opening and Noctis glances over his shoulder to see Ignis ducking out from the tent, his hair still slack from sleep. It makes Noctis’s mouth twitch up, just slightly. “Morning, Specs.” 

“Good morning,” Ignis says. He crosses to where the cooler is tucked beneath the camp bench and pulls out a can of ebony. “You’re certainly up early.” 

“Yeah,” Noctis says, noncommittal. “Just… felt like it.” 

“Well, far be it for me to discourage the development of a good habit,” Ignis says, as he sets about pulling out ingredients for breakfast, popping his coffee open with one hand in a move so practiced it’s almost impressive. “May I ask what has motivated such a change?” 

Noctis groans, hauling himself to his feet and throwing himself back down in one of the abandoned chairs. “Nothing,” he says. 

“Hmm,” Ignis hums, dropping a pan atop the camp stove, but he doesn’t press. 

Silence falls easily, broken only by the faint crackle of frying bacon and eggs. Noctis watches his breath fog in the air before him, hands tucked into his armpits. The tent keeps the worst of the weather out, but he can’t help but imagine how fucking _cold_ it must have been out here without the best the Crown City had to offer between you and the elements. 

Faintly, he hears the sound of the tent once more, and then a hand drops atop his head, messing up his already disheveled hair. “Good morning,” Gladio says. “What the fuck are you doing up this early? Are you gettin’ sick on us?” 

Noctis scowls, batting away his hand. “I just couldn’t sleep, okay?” 

“In that case, maybe you should come jogging with me. Get the blood pumping.” 

Noctis flips him off and Gladio snorts, patting his shoulder heavily before passing by. He stops to talk to Ignis for a moment, pinching something from the assortment of foods strewn across the bench, and Ignis very narrowly misses his fingertips with a knife in a way that looks far too intentional. 

Gladio disappears off into the trees for his morning jog and Noctis watches until he’s out of sight. Sighing, he drops his head against the back of the chair. “Hey, Ignis?” 

“Yes?” 

“Do you think we could, I don’t know, go looking for that boy today? While there’s light to see by.” 

From the corner of his eye, he can see Ignis turn to look at him, face impassive in that way he gets when he doesn’t want to press Noctis towards any choice at all. “I thought you and Gladio had agreed it was best to wait for him to come to us?”

Noctis groans, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah, I know, it’s just… it’s been two night since we first saw him and he was already looking rough _then_ so, like, what if between now and tonight he just… I don’t know, kicks the bucket?” 

Ignis turns back to the stove, careful flipping the bacon. “He looks as if he’s been living in the wild for some time, Noct. I hardly think one more night will be what does him in.” 

“Yeah, but what _if?”_ Noctis worries at his lip and says, voice soft, “Specs, he looked _real_ bad.” 

Quiet falls again. Noctis gives it a moment to linger and then raises his head to squint at Ignis’s back. The camp stove flickers off and a moment later Ignis turns, offering Noctis a breakfast sandwich on a plate. Noctis takes it automatically. _“Ignis.”_

“I heard you,” Ignis says, settling into the chair beside him, his own plate carefully cradled in his hands. “And if you’re so worried, then so be it. When Gladio returns, we’ll brainstorm a map of possible locations he could be holed away in.” 

Noctis lets out a breath, relief making his shoulders sag. “Thanks,” he says. “Really, thanks, Ignis.” 

Ignis smiles, just a little, the rising sun catching on his glasses. “I am hardly being altruistic,” he says. “Being truthful, I too am concerned about how much longer he might be able to weather the wild in his condition.”

Noctis leans forward, balancing his plate atop his knee. “There’s some abandoned old shacks just down the highway a stretch,” he says. “I saw them when we drove past. Maybe we can -” 

“Noct,” Ignis says patiently. “Eat, please.” 

It takes an enormous amount of willpower, but somehow Noctis manages to hold himself still for long enough to choke down Ignis’s really quite excellent sandwich. He’s just swallowing down the last of it when he hears footsteps and glances over his shoulder to see Gladio easily mounting the uneven footpath to the haven. 

“Smells good,” he says, snagging the plate Ignis had left out for him and crossing to take the spare chair across the fire pit. “Thanks, Iggy.” 

“Best make sure you eat it all,” Ignis says. “You’ll need your strength. It seems there will be a manhunt today.” 

Gladio snorts, tossing a glance at Noctis. “Oh, is that so? Do I even need to ask what sorta man we’re hunting? Or should I just assume he’s about as tall as a certain prince and twice as pale?” 

“It gets _cold_ at night,” Noctis says, defensive. “Who knows how long he’s been out here? He was eating out of the _garbage,_ Gladio, and a gun isn’t going to get him very far against a lot of daemons -” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Gladio says, cutting him off. He takes a bite from his breakfast. “You wanna look? We’ll look. Don’t get your panties in a knot, Your Highness.” 

Noctis is momentarily taken aback. He’d been prepared for far more resistance, and all his carefully constructed arguments fall apart on his tongue. “What? I mean - Good. Yeah.” 

Gladio laughs. “What? You thought I was going to be a stick in the mud? That’s Iggy’s job.”

“Gladio,” Ignis says, voice deceptively sharp. 

“All I’m saying,” Gladio continues, “is if Iggy says yes, who am I to disagree?” He finishes the last of his sandwich, licking sauce off his fingertips while he considers. “Besides, not like you’re wrong. I’m sure that kid is capable of a lot of things, but not even the most capable soldier can outrun the elements.” 

Noctis sits back. He’s spent so much of his life chafing under the rigorous restrictions that Gladio and Ignis were responsible for enforcing that sometimes he forgets that, at the end of the day, they’re on his side - always, even when Noctis wants to chase a waif of a boy through half of Lucis, if that’s what it takes to find him. 

“Alright,” Ignis says, getting to his feet and collecting the breakfast dishes from everyone’s hands. “Let’s get to it, shall we?” 

Gladio grins, reclining back with his arms folded behind his head. “Give me ten minutes and a map,” he says. “You came to the right man, Noct. There’s nothing out there that I can’t track and I’m in the mood for a challenge.” 

.

Together, they make the choice to search further east. South lays the Nebulawood, and Noctis can only hope that the boy had been smart enough to steer clear. They’d seen more than one passing poster warning of a behemoth in the area, and Noctis does not fancy the chances of a malnourished boy with a gun against a beast of that caliber. 

Ignis drives them in fits and bursts; stopping whenever remnants of civilization hint through the skyline and trees. Gladio has the most likely locations pinned out on the map, but Noctis insists they pull over and at least glance through some of the locations he’d struck from the list. Gladio is mostly good about humoring him too, which is both relieving and also frustrating, because Noctis has never enjoyed being treated like somebody who ought to be humored. 

“How far along next?” Ignis asks from behind the wheel as they peel back onto the road. A passing van toots its horn and swerves around them, and Noctis wonders how they’d feel of they knew just who this car once belonged to. 

“Not far,” Gladio says from the front seat where he’s navigating. The map is fanned out on the dashboard in front of him, although his eyes are fixed at the passing scenery. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.” 

“Why?” Noctis asks. 

Gladio taps a tiny speck on the map. “This is about halfway between the haven and the outpost he was haunting. Saw some old structures out here when we took that hunt yesterday. Walking distance is feasible, if not exactly comfortable. Pull over, Iggy.” 

“Well,” Ignis says, gloved hands smoothly turning the wheel as he eases them to a stop along the road, “I get the feeling comfort is rather something that has been in short supply for him for some time now.” 

They leave the car behind, jumping the guardrail and hiking past where the dust breaks back into greenery. The trees are thicker out here than they are towards the haven, and if Gladio hadn’t been leading them Noctis would have missed the ramshackle ruin of a building peeking through the tree trunks entirely. 

It’s not even big enough to have been a shack. A shed, maybe, although for _what_ he couldn’t say. The walls are moss-covered and bug-eaten, and Noctis hesitates at a distance, staring, certain this is just another dead end. The outskirts of Lucis is in no shortage of abandoned property, and they’d passed several empty houses on the way here that looked far more livable than whatever this was. 

Surely not. _Surely not._

“Yeah,” Gladio says quietly, his footsteps barely audible as he slips by Noctis. “Think we’ve hit the jackpot.” 

Noctis stares at him and then looks back to the shed. For a moment, he can’t see what Gladio is talking about, he really can’t, and then very suddenly he _does._ Across the empty doorway a sharp piece of wire catches the mid-morning sun; taunt enough to both cut and trip any unlucky ankles that manage to catch at it. 

“Don’t think hunters left that there,” Gladio says. “Ignis, get out your knives.” 

Noctis straightens, throwing him a furious look. “What are you doing? I _told_ you -” 

Gladio holds up a hand. “You and me? Sure. Think the kid would notice something as big as a fucking sword looming over him. But if he’s really in there and he gets spooked, we need _something_ to defend ourselves, alright?” 

Ignis sets a calming hand to his shoulder even as Noctis glowers. “It’s a precaution,” he says. “Simply -” 

“No,” Noctis grits out, _“weapons.”_

Despite what Gladio might say, he’s not quite short enough to miss the exasperated look they shoot over his head. “Fine,” Gladio says. “But you stay back a bit, okay? I mean it, Noct.” 

It’s probably the best he’s going to get out of either of them. Noctis was not raised to be a king just so he could fail to recognize a lost battle when he saw one. Reluctantly, he stepped back, allowing Ignis to sidle in front of him. 

“I think it’s perhaps best if I approach first,” Ignis says. “You are rather intimidating to the untrained eye, after all.” 

“I better be,” Gladio says, but he lets Ignis take the lead. Noctis hovers only a step behind, ignoring the warning look Gladio shoots him. They round the shed until they have a clear view through the space inside; barely two meters squared, if that. For a moment, Noctis thinks it’s empty too, that if the boy ever _was_ here he’s not now, but then he catches a glimpse of pale skin; the hint of an elbow, a cloth tied tight about a wrist, the dirty soles of bare feet, dark jeans wore to absolute _ruin._

The space around him is a mess. There’s blankets, although they look old enough to have been around before Noctis was even born, and some scattered belongings that he can’t really make heads or tails of from where he stands. Noctis’s heart skips a beat and Gladio throws out a hand to keep him back. It’s him. He’s here and he’s _alive,_ although the way he’s curled up among the dirt and weeds makes him look dead. The slow up and down of his chest hints at sleep, but the tight grip he has on the gun resting by his freckled cheek is disconcerting. 

Ignis seems to agree if the way he steps pointedly in front of Noctis is any indicator. For a moment, the three of them just stand there, staring, at a complete loss. They’d been so worried about _finding_ him they hadn’t really considered how best to approach the next step. Certainly, Noctis hadn’t thought he’d be asleep like this, as if the sun pouring in the holes punched through the roof above him was little bother at all. 

Noctis glances to Ignis, brows high, and whispers as quietly as he can, “What are we supposed to do?” 

It’d been so, so silent - barely above the sound of a stray breeze - but instantly the boy goes rigid. His eyes snap open like a switch had been flipped, looking right at the three of them with piercing blue.

“Uh,” Noctis says, and very slowly raises his hands. “Sorry, we didn’t - we’re not here to hurt you, swear it.” 

_“Noct,”_ Gladio hisses. “What did we say?” 

The boy hasn’t moved from where he is on the ground but his shoulders go tense, gaze flicking to Gladio in a heartbeat. Noctis is just near enough to see the way his grip tightens on his gun, as if readying to aim at any moment. 

“Maybe if you two did something other than just _standing_ there,” Noctis snaps. 

“I hardly think your tone is helping either,” Ignis says, voice smooth as butter. To the boy, he says, “Noctis is right though, we are extremely sorry to have woken you so abruptly. That was not our intention at all. Would you like some space as you sit up?” 

The boy doesn’t reply, but the way his unblinking gaze rests on Ignis is less frightened and more wary. It’s hard to tell when he’s still laying down, but Noctis is almost certain that he nods, just a fraction. 

“You want some space?” Noctis asks. “Sure thing. C’mon, move it, Gladio.” 

They back up a pace and then two. Noctis makes sure to keep his hands where they can be seen. _See?_ he wants to say. _Nothing to be afraid of here. Not from us - not from me._

The boy sits up slowly, drawing the gun closer to him as he rises. He’s wearing Noctis’s shirt; smudged with dirt and loose on his skinny shoulders, but leagues better than the ragged mess he’d been wearing the previous night. The dark fabric washes out his pale cheeks something fierce, but Noctis has a strong suspicion that his complexion is the least of his problems.

“We didn’t mean to surprise you,” Ignis says in that supernaturally calm voice of his. “We were concerned after the way we parted last night and thought it best to check up on you and see if you were well.” 

_Check up on you_ \- as if they were simply knocking on a wayward neighbor’s door and not hunting through the cracks and crevices of Alstor Slough, hoping all the while that they weren’t about to stumble upon a dead body. Noctis supposes that’s one way to put it. 

“Are you feeling better?” Noctis asks, then, at the boy’s confused look, clarifies, “I mean, compared to last night and all. You’re not feeling sick or anything?” 

The boy stares at him, eyes wide, and then realization seems to dawn. A pink flush brightens his cheeks, head ducking down, and he shakes his head frantically in what Noctis thinks is meant to be a reassuring manner. He draws a knee up, hand pressing to the dirt as he makes to haul himself upright, but the moment his butt leaves the ground the color in his cheeks drain and his hand gives out. He falls right back down again, and the plainly surprised look on his face would be funny in any other situation but this one. 

“Here,” Noctis says, stepping forward instantly and ducking under Gladio’s warning hand easily. Behind him, Ignis hisses _“Noct!”_ but he has even more practice in ignoring Ignis, so it’s nothing more than white noise. He bends down before the boy and offers him both of his empty hands. “Need a hand?” 

It’s quiet for a moment. The boy looks to his hands and then to Noctis’s face. Noctis strives to keep his expression unthreatening and open; he has nothing to hide here, and that’s not something Noctis gets to say often these days. He can sense Ignis and Gladio hovering behind him, and he knows it’s taking all of their rapidly draining willpower not to snatch him back, hide him away behind their broad shoulders designed to keep the world at bay, but truthfully Noctis asks for very little from them, and if Noctis is _certain_ that this is something he wants to do, they won’t stop him unless it proves untenable. 

The boy’s gaze flickers over Noctis’s shoulders. Back again. A pause, long enough that the tension in the air draws tight enough to snap, and then a pale, freckled hand slips into Noctis’s own. Noctis lets out a breath that’s been crammed in the narrow corners of his ribs and very gently hauls the boy to his feet.

“Is that better?” he asks, taking care to hover only as near as he knows he’d be welcome as their hands part. “Think you can keep on your feet?” 

Hesitation. The boy nods, and although he still looks unimaginably cautious, the way he eyes Noctis seems less like he’s expecting to be hit any moment. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Noctis can work with that.

“Your feet must be sore,” he says. “Not the best sort of terrain to go around barefoot. I think I’ve got an old pair of boots in our stuff somewhere. If you want them, I mean.” 

The boy’s eyes bore through him. Up close, his narrow face is almost unimaginably solemn. It almost makes Noctis nervous. Words tripping on his already unclever tongue. He doesn’t really know what to say, and he reaches out to set a hand on the boy’s elbow, to guide him back the way they came, and then thinks better of it. Desperately, he glances over his shoulder to Ignis. 

Ignis clears his throat and steps forward. “Your injuries cannot be comfortable,” he says, a gentle chiding. “Perhaps, if you’d like to come with us, we can do something for them.” 

The boy still doesn’t move, but at least he isn’t stepping back or reaching for the gun he’d tucked into the holster at his side. He bites his lip, flickers a glance back towards the rundown shack behind him, and Noctis understands. 

“Hey,” he says, gentle as he can manage, and the boy’s attention jumps back to him. He tries for a smile. “We can come back here. I mean, after. If you want. You don’t have to stay at the camp if you don’t - if that’s not what you want.” 

_Smooth,_ Noctis thinks to himself. _Real smooth._ The eloquence expected of him in the Citadel feels entire galaxies away these days. Sometimes he worries by the time he’s ready to reclaim his throne, he’ll have forgotten how to be anything other than a travel-worn hunter who speaks more like a Duscaen farmer than a king. 

Somehow, in a move that defies fate, his stumbling explanation seems to do the trick. The tense line of the boy’s shoulders drops, if only ever so slightly, and when his blue eyes land back on Noctis’s face he seems almost relieved. His dirty fingers knot together in the front of his shirt - Noctis’s old shirt - and he _nods._

It’s the sweetest victory Noctis has felt in a long, long time. He steps back, gesturing for the boy to follow them back the way they came. “C’mon,” he says. “Just wait until you see our ride.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually the chapter that would not quit. It wound up being so long I had to split it, which means at the very least the next chapter wil be closer to a week away rather than two again, which is what I'd consider a victory. 
> 
> twitter: @doingwritebyme  
> tumblr: glenflower


	4. Chapter 4

The trip back to the haven is thankfully brief. The boy sits gingerly in the backseat, hands in his lap and shoulders hunched as if trying to take up as little space as possible. He seems almost petrified to touch the upholstery, and it takes Noctis an embarrassingly long moment to realize he’s probably worried about getting it dirty. He thinks it’d probably make him feel worse to mention it though, so he bites his tongue and somehow manages to keep his mouth shut. 

He and Gladio have a quiet argument about who gets to sit where, which is as heated as it is hushed, the both of them taking great pains to keep it out of the boy’s hearing range. 

“Noct, we don’t know him. He has a _gun._ You’re sitting up front with Ignis.” 

“He’s not going to fucking _shoot_ me. You know that! If you sit back there, you’re gonna freak him out. He’s already half-terrified of you.” 

“Maybe that’ll keep him from doing anything dumb.” 

“Or maybe it’ll make him run away again,” Noctis hisses. “And this time we won’t find him, not if he knows we’re actually _looking.”_

Gladio sighs a sigh that Noctis knows for certain he learnt from Ignis; straddling the thin border between weary exasperation and genuine irritation. His jaw is tense, and he glances over his shoulder back towards the Regalia. The boy is sitting iron-rod straight, staring at Ignis with wide eyes as he keeps up what must be an incredibly one-sided conversation. Gladio grimaces and turns back to Noctis again. “Fine,” he says. “But if he so much as reaches for that gun, you better believe you’re healing it that old fashioned way. Potions go to the people who use their _brains_ instead of their bleeding hearts.” 

It’s an empty threat and they both know it, like Gladio and Ignis aren’t already reaching for a potion the moment Noctis so much as stubs a damn toe. Besides, big words for a man who used to help Noctis smuggle stray cats into the Citadel behind the ever watchful eyes of his own father. 

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Noctis says, and spins around, bouncing back to the road and throwing himself into the rear passenger seat before Gladio can think to change his mind. The boy flinches bodily at his abrupt arrival, but Noctis just smiles at him as widely as he can and says, “Ready to hit the road, dude?” 

The drive is a short one now that they’re not pulling over every few hundred meters or so to search the scrub and the ruins. Twenty minutes, give or take, before they roll past the outpost where they’d first found the boy and into the parking space nearest the haven. The boy watches the Crow’s Nest vanish in the rearview mirror with an expression that Noctis can’t quite decipher, but once he realizes Noctis is staring he looks away hurriedly. 

“Not much further,” Ignis says cheerfully as they climb out. “We’re still at the same camping spot, I’m afraid. You remember where that is, yes?” The boy nods, trailing after them as they step past the guardrail and off the asphalt onto the weed-choked dirt by the roadside. Ignis glances back at him and asks, “Will the walk be okay for you? If not, we can -” 

The boy shakes his head, hurrying to fall into step between Ignis and Noctis, like he’s trying to prove something. Gladio trails after them, carrying the camping gear they’d packed up this morning on the off chance they wouldn’t be returning, but he does the boy the kindness of staying more or less in his line of sight. 

The ever present smoke of the haven curls in the sky above, and Noctis hovers anxiously as the boy slowly climbs the rocks to where they smooth into a flat plain. His feet don’t leave bloodstains this time, but it’s all too easy to remember the rust colored smears trailing behind him. “Here,” Noctis says, gently taking his shoulder and guiding him to sit at the edge of the camp. “Gladio and Ignis are going to set up. Why don’t you sit down for a moment?” 

The shoulder beneath his hands goes stiff and tense, and Noctis is sure the boy is going to shrug him off, but after a second he allows Noctis to guide him forward, unresisting if incredibly wary. Noctis watches as he folds himself down, unconcerned that the rock beneath them is uneven and rough. He watches Noctis from beneath the filthy mess of his hair, and Noctis takes care to smile at him as he steps back. “Do you want some more water?” he asks. “Something to eat?” 

Another nod. They seem to be coming quicker now, at least, and Noctis can only hope that it’s a promising sign for future communication. He turns away, rejoining the others where Gladio is re-pitching the tent he’d only torn down this morning. He glances up as Noctis appears behind his shoulder. “How’s the kid?” 

“Got him to sit down at least,” Noctis says. “I’m hoping I can convince him to let us have a look at his injuries. Have we got potions?” 

“Here,” Ignis says, sweeping over from the re-erected cooking area. “Start with one and see how he goes. Give me a moment and I’ll find our medical kit too.” He presses a fresh water bottle into one hand and a shimmering potion into the other. “Be gentle with him.” 

Noctis scowls. “I know that,” he says, and turns to hurry back to where the boy is awkwardly bunched in on himself, watching the lot of them with keen, curious eyes. He squats down in front of him, offering the water bottle. “Thirsty?” 

The boy bites his lip for a moment and then reaches out to take it. His hands obviously shake as he unscrews the cap, but he looks substantially less awful than he had the previous night, which is progress of _some_ kind, surely. He drinks quietly for a moment, swiping his hand over the back of his mouth when he’s had enough. He hesitates and then offers it to Noctis who sets it aside on the rock between them. “Does that help?” 

A nod. 

Noctis smiles thinly and carefully chooses his words. “That’s good. You know what else I think could help you feel, you know, a little better? If you’d let me have a look at your injuries. Just to…” the boy is already shaking his head, and Noctis’s heart sinks. “You were bleeding last night, right? We can help with that, if you let us.” 

The boy’s still shaking his head, an adamant _no_ if Noctis has ever seen one. His knees draw up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, condensing tight into a ball it’d take more power than Noctis possesses to pry open. He just barely make out the soles of his feet by the way he’s sitting; scuffed with dirt and dried blood. It makes his skin itch just to imagine the condition they must be in after fuck knows how long of running around the Lucian wilderness. 

Noctis works to bank back the frustration setting hot fingertips along his nerves and offers the boy a beseeching smile, holding out the potion. “Alright, that’s fine. What about a potion, at the very least? Might not do much for anything long term, but, like, it’s better than nothing.” 

To his great relief, the boy takes the potion, rolling it between his palms. He glances up at Noctis from beneath his eyelashes, looking unsure, and Noctis says, just in case the boy doesn’t know any better, “It works on skin contact too, but it’s best to drink it.” 

The boy does, looking incredibly uncertain, but the moment the potion tips past his lips his expression changes rapidly - first shock, then confusion, tailed closely by something that is very close to awe. It’s becoming quickly apparent that whatever experience the boy has with healing magic is minimal at best. His wondrous gaze flicks to Noctis and then freezes, and Noctis hurries to wipe away whatever expression is creasing his face, tightening his fist until his nails dig into the soft skin of his palm. 

“Yeah, that’s how you do it,” he says. “I bet that’s even better than the water, hey?” 

Ignis’s hand lands on Noctis’s shoulder, leaning past him to offer one of Gladio’s protein bars that Noctis can’t stand. “I’ll start lunch shortly,” he says. “But this should hold you over for now.” 

The boy looks faintly overwhelmed, the potion in one hand and the bar in the other, water bottle still resting on the ground between them. His baffled expression squeezes Noctis’s heart something fierce. He stays where he is for a moment, holding the boy’s gaze and frantically fishing for something to say, something reassuring that won’t send him skittering back to the pathetic husk of a camp nested away in the woods. 

_Gladio’s protein bars taste like shit, but it’s probably better than the garbage we caught you eating the other day? I think it’s cool how you’re more scar tissue than flesh; I hear it’s really in vogue at the moment? Got any recommendations for where to pick up the latest in the dumpster diving fashion line?_

The hand Ignis has on his shoulder tightens. “Come now,” he murmurs by Noctis’s ear. “Give him some space.” 

Noctis allows himself to be reluctantly drawn away. The boy watches them - Noctis is so keenly aware of his gaze pressing in at the small of his back - but he stays where he is, a skinny mess sticking out from his fresh hoard of creature comforts. 

Gladio already has the tent back up by the time Noctis trails over, and he snorts when he sees his face. “Thought you’d be happier about this,” he says. “After how hard you fought to get the kid here and all. Why the long face, princess?” 

Noctis drops into one of the camp chairs by the empty fire pit. “Don’t call me that,” he says by rote. “And my face isn’t _long._ It isn’t anything.” 

“Uh huh,” Gladio says, straightening the last of the tent poles. “Of course not. My mistake. I forget you always look like a wet blanket.” 

Noctis aims a halfhearted kick at his ankle which Gladio dodges with ease. “Don’t be a dick,” he says. He chances a glance over his shoulder. The boy’s finished the potion and has started in on the protein bar, taking slow, methodical bites as if trying to savor it. Noctis jerks his gaze away before he can get caught staring. Gladio is still looking at him, one eyebrow cocked, and Noctis sighs, sinking lower in his seat. “It’s just… don’t you, I don’t know, feel angry about this?” 

“At the kid squatting at the edge of our camp?” 

“No,” Noctis says forcefully. _“About_ the kid squatting at the edge of the camp. He can’t be older than I am and he’s…” There’s no polite way to describe what the kid is, only what he isn’t, and all the things he isn’t are the things Noctis _is._ Noctis has always been aware of the incredible privileges of his life, even with the price tag that comes with them, but sometimes when shit like this happens he’s hit upside the head with his just how _ignorant_ and narrow his worldview is - or at the very least _was._

Before he left Insomnia, the world outside the Wall was nothing but a vague dream at best. Now, seeing the impacts of the war up close for the first time, he’s struck with a helpless fury at how little power he really has to do anything about it. 

Noctis was never meant to be a king at twenty - he was supposed to have at _least_ another decade to figure this shit out, to be the imperfect crown prince who was spoilt but well intentioned, to try and learn how best to govern his people and his country so that when he _did_ take the throne he would be able to change things for the better. 

He doesn’t have any of that now. He’s not really the prince anymore and he’s not really the king either - he doesn’t have the Crown City, the throne, _his father._ All Noctis has is his dad’s car, his two closest friends, and this well of helplessness inside his chest that can change _nothing._

Noctis can’t help Lucis. Not right now, not like this. What he can do, however, is make sure this terrified, half-mute boy doesn’t die a pointless death in Astral’s damned _Alstor Slough_ of all places. Noctis wouldn’t wish such a thing on his worst enemy, and as the orphaned son of an assassinated king, Noctis isn’t running short on those. 

“Hey,” Gladio says, snatching Noctis’s attention. His brow is furrowed and his expression unreadable. “Don’t go getting lost up in your head, you hear me? Got enough shit to sort through out here without getting stuck up there too.” 

That wrangles a small smile out of Noctis. “It’s called _thinking._ Maybe you should try it sometime.” 

Despite Noctis’s teasing tone, Gladio’s expression doesn’t ease. “I’m serious, Noct. I get it, I do. Fuck, you were right. All this shit? I’m angry about it to. Of course I am.” He nods his head towards the boy. “Haven’t got a solid clue what his story is, but if he’s been living off the land like he has for some time, I can bet it sure ain’t pretty.”

“What’s your point, Gladio?” 

Gladio turns back, heaving the last tarp over the roof of the tent even though the skies above are clear and cloud free. “You can get angry or you can do something about it,” Gladio says bluntly. “You don’t want to see a hundred other kids just like him? Then start thinking forward instead of backwards.” 

He turns, roughly patting Noctis on the shoulder as he crosses the camp to Ignis’s little cooking station. Noctis watches him go, one hand to the shoulder Gladio’s fingers had brushed. Up above, the sun is so bright that Noctis could almost be convinced that the horrors of the night don’t exist in the places where the shadows grow thick like weeds upon the ground. 

When Noctis twists, he sees the boy sitting with his legs dangling from the haven’s rocks, feet swinging idly and sweaty water bottle in his palms as he watches the camp around him. He seems less frightened now, settled somewhat between the kindness and the space. The potion had brought same color back to his cheeks and even with half the haven between them Noctis can see the distinctive pop of his freckles. 

Noctis smiles, just a bit, and launches himself to his feet and ambles over to see if Ignis needs a hand. 

.

Lunch is thick cut sandwiches made with the least of the daggerquill breast from the other night; the bread soft, and the meat tender. Ignis very conscientiously cuts the boy’s into quarters, and when it becomes apparent that anything more than half is going to cause a repeat of last night’s incident he’s quick to whisk his plate away. 

It’s been a long time since they’d stayed at a haven with daylight still burning, and Noctis is honestly a little at a loss for what to do. He’s dilemma is solved when Gladio slings an arm around his shoulders. “C’mon,” he says. “I think you and me have a date with some of the training you’ve been skipping out on.” 

Noctis is in half a mind to protest, but he’s dragged off before he can really get a word out. Ignis waves them off from where he’s pulled his chair over nearer to the boy, a can of ebony in his hands, and a second potion in the boy’s. At the very least, the boy looks as close to comfortable as they’ve seen him yet - he hasn’t moved away from Ignis, and seems to be listening to the light conversation Ignis is keeping up, if not actively contributing. In loath to upset that precarious balance, Noctis gives up and allows himself to be dragged off a half mile away to be put brutally through his paces. 

Gladio lets him have it. For the first time in weeks, Noctis is forced to really put his back into it - warping every which way he can manage and nearly sending himself into stasis more than once. “That’s it,” Gladio says in what he probably thinks is an encouraging manner as Noctis barely manages to get his Engine Blade up in time to block the heavy fall of Gladio’s two-hander. “Maybe you’re not so rusty after all.” 

“And maybe you could have just _asked_ instead of nearly throwing me into a boulder,” Noctis wheezes, ducking and rolling out of the way just as his arms give out and Gladio’s sword cleaves down. 

Gladio shrugs amicably, pulling it from the ground and raining clotted dirt as he heaves it over his shoulders. “You warped out of the way just fine, didn’t you?” 

They keep at it for long enough that the sun finally begins to burn a little dimmer, and by the time they hike back to the camp, Noctis’s legs feel like lead. It’s not dark yet, but he can see the preemptive smoke of the fire curling through the pinking horizon, and when Noctis’s feet finally hit the slate and rock of the haven he comes to a momentary standstill, taken off guard. 

The boy is in one of the chairs by the fire; hands clasped tightly around a mug and legs drawn up on the seat beneath him. Noctis can just barely see his feet from here; wrapped thick with fresh bandages. He’s wearing one of Ignis’s lighter jackets that he’d optimistically packed when it’d seemed like they’d have time to relax in Altissia, and despite the fact Ignis isn’t exactly broad-shouldered himself, he’s swimming in it. There’s still a cloth tied around his wrist, but at least it isn’t the filthy scrap of a thing he’d been wearing before. 

It’s like looking at a different person entirely. The wounded creature Noctis had left behind only hours ago is gone, replaced with a clone that looks exactly the same and utterly foreign at the same time. 

“Ah,” Ignis says, appearing beside the boy, wiping his hands on a cloth. Noctis can see the start of dinner on the bench behind him. “Good, you’re back. I assume it was a productive session?” 

“Yeah, you could say that I guess,” Noctis says. “Not as productive as your time, I think.” 

The boy flushes a little, looking fixedly down at his mug, and Noctis winces. He hadn’t meant to make him feel self-conscious, even if a small, sour part of himself is jealous that it had been _Ignis_ that had been the one to win his trust. 

Ignis gives him a _look_ and Noctis returns it, hoping to communicate the fact he doesn’t really need to be chastised because he already knows he misstepped on that one. He clears his throat, striving forward and sinking into the chair across from the boy but taking care not to move too fast or sit too close. He’s gratified when the boy doesn’t flinch away. “Anyway,” Noctis says, “what’s for dinner? I’m _exhausted.”_

“Maybe it wouldn’t be a problem if you trained more often,” Gladio says as he passes him by. 

“Excuse you, we take like five hunts a week - I couldn’t train harder if I _tried.”_

“That’s not training, that’s _work._ There’s a difference.” 

“I thought perhaps risotto tonight,” Ignis says, as if Gladio and Noctis aren’t talking at all. He turns back to his preparations. “Any objections?” 

“None from me,” Gladio says, leaning against the bench and popping some stray ingredient or another into his mouth before Ignis can catch him. “You know I’d eat anything you cooked.” 

“Yes, well.” Ignis sounds ever so slightly flattered, even if he tries to hide it, and Gladio and Noctis exchange a smirk behind his back. “Be that as it may, I’d rather not cook a meal nobody is in the mood to eat.” 

“Sounds good, Specs,” Noctis says. “Need a hand?” 

Ignis turns just enough to raise a brow. “You have been inordinately helpful today,” he says. “I’m beginning to worry.” 

Noctis looks to the boy and rolls his eyes. “He’s exaggerating,” he says. “I help out all the time. Don’t listen to them.” 

The boy, of course, doesn’t reply. He raises his mug, hiding his face behind it as he takes a tentative sip, but Noctis notices the way he sneaks a glance at him when he thinks Noctis has looked away; openly curious and nowhere near as skittish as he’d been only hours earlier. 

Noctis has no clue what kind of magic Ignis had worked in their absence, but clearly it’d stuck. 

Dinner is as excellent as always. They make light chatter as they eat; Gladio leaning easily against the cooking bench as if it were something he did every meal, and Noctis breathes a soft sigh of relief when the boy doesn’t seem to realize there’s three chairs and four of them now. Doubtlessly, the boy will think he’s done something wrong, and Noctis doesn’t want to unravel all the progress of the day over something so _pointless._

He eats a little more than half of his meal, and when Ignis fetches his plate from him he offers the boy a wide smile. “Was it to your liking?” 

Slowly, the boy nods. 

“Excellent,” Ignis says, and Noctis can practically see him filing away the information for a later date. “Let’s see if whatever is decided tomorrow lives up to it.” 

Ignis vanishes towards the bench, falling into conversation with Gladio, and the boy stares after him, seemingly baffled by the notion that there are still _more_ meals to come. It’s a little cute and a _lot_ sad if Noctis thinks about it for too long. 

He leans forward, arms propped on his legs, and says, “Hey.” The boy glances to him and Noctis smiles. “It’s not too late yet, got some time to kill before calling it a night. You wanna learn how to play King’s Knight?” 

The boy stares. Noctis can read his expression with far more clarity than he’d ever thought possible; confusion, and just a little bit of intrigue. He very clearly doesn’t even know what King’s Knight is, but that’s cool, Noctis hadn’t expected him to, and he makes a pretty good teacher. Well, when it comes to video games at least. 

“Noct,” Ignis calls, a soft warning in his voice. 

“It’s fine, Iggy,” Noctis says. “I’m just going to show him how it works. He deserves to have _fun.”_

Ignis eyes him for a moment before sighing, turning back to tidying the dinner mess. He murmurs something to Gladio, but he just shrugs. 

Noctis looks back to the boy who’s watching them with an increasing wariness. “It’s a game,” Noctis explains. “A phone game. Here, let me show you.” He gets to his feet and moves to drag his chair closer only to pause and rethink it. “Oh, hey, do you mind if I sit with you? We’ll both need to see the screen.” 

The boy blinks, looking taken aback. After a second he nods shyly and Noctis blows out a relieved breath and pulls his chair as near as he thinks he can get away with. He sinks back down, pulling his phone from his pocket and booting up the game. “Here,” he says, leaning forward and holding it between him. “See the little avatar? That’s us. It’s pretty easy; you just gotta fight off the bad guys. It’s more fun when you play against other people, but there’s some AI difficulties that aren’t bad.” He glances back up. The firelight paints gold into the boy’s hair and darkens his eyes. He’s staring at the screen Noctis has held out between them like a lifeline. “You get it?” 

The boy contemplates it for a moment and nods. Noctis grins. “I’ll teach you how to play. Watch for now, and you can have a shot next, yeah?” Another nod, this one a little less hesitant, and the warm feeling in Noctis’s stomach blooms further. 

Together, they play King’s Knight for an hour, maybe two, passing the phone back and forth. The boy doesn’t seem to know how to handle it at first, hands awkward and fingers shaky, but after a while something seems to click and he begins to wipe the _floor_ with their opponents, skinny fingers graceful as they sweep across the screen. Every now and again he sneaks a peek at Noctis, and Noctis makes sure to lean forward and point at the screen, urging him on, praising him for his best moves and grinning widely when he obliterates a particularly hard level. 

“Man,” Noctis says, trying to stretch out the stiffness from being hunched over. “You’re a natural at this, you know? We gotta get you an account for yourself.” 

The boy’s cheeks flush and he looks so clearly pleased. A shy smile flickers over his lips, brief but absolutely awe inspiring. It strikes Noctis dumb for a moment honestly, and it’s only when Ignis clears his throat that he starts, looking back up. 

Ignis has a brow crooked. Gladio’s got a book out, but it doesn’t hide the amused smirk on his face. “I think,” Ignis says, “that it is perhaps getting a bit late for King’s Knight.” 

Noctis glances towards his darkened phone screen. It’s nearly midnight. He hadn’t even noticed, although now that he _has_ he can’t stop. The weight of the stress of the day, and the heinous training Gladio had ran him through earlier settle against his shoulders like a shroud. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” 

“You’ll find I often am,” Ignis says. He looks to the boy and says, tone much softer, “Would you like to stay with us for this evening? If you’d like to return to your…” Ignis doesn’t seem to have a word for the little nest they’d found him in either. “Well, we would gladly drive you back, if you would prefer. But please know that it would be absolutely no trouble to accommodate you here.” 

All the tension that had drained from the boy over the course of the day seems to creep back in, making a home in his narrow shoulders and uncertain expression. His gaze skitters to the tent, clearly gauging the size of it, the proximity, and then, in a move that almost looks unconscious, it lands on Gladio for a moment before dropping back to his lap. 

Maybe another set of people would have missed it; not them. Gladio’s face is like stone, although Noctis can see a faint crack in it; a chip left behind by the repeated touch of the boy’s terrified gaze. Most of the time, Noctis knows Gladio is only too glad to leverage his intimidation for everything it’s worth; half of his job is looking threatening and unapproachable, and Gladio had worked very hard to hone what had been a natural talent. But Gladio is also the same person who’d let Iris do his hair for three weeks straight when she was going through a braiding phase, and Noctis may be an only child but he’s pretty certain you don’t get to be as good of an older brother as Gladio is without developing a certain soft spot. 

“You know,” Noctis says, before anybody else can get a word in, “I’m thinking I might sleep outside tonight. Nice night, you know? Lot of stars to see.” 

The corner of Gladio’s mouth twitches but he wrestles it back down when Noctis sends him a stern glare. “Be my guest,” he says. “Me? I think I’ll take the tent. Enjoy your time with the ‘stars’.” 

Ignis looks considering for a moment before he says, “I think I’ll be in the tent too.” To the boy, he says, “I sleep nearest to the door so I don’t wake Gladio when I get up in the morning to make breakfast. If you need anything at all, do not hesitate to ask.” 

And just like that the tension leaks from his shoulders; Gladio a tent away, with Ignis safely tucked between them. Not the ideal long term solution, perhaps, but Noctis is hopeful that once the boy realizes that Gladio isn’t nearly as scary as he seems they can perhaps work on figuring out the logistics of four bodies in one tent. For now, he’ll take whatever he gets. 

“So,” Noctis says, very gently nudging the boy’s elbow with his own. “How about it? Wanna camp out under the stars with me for tonight?” 

He holds his breath. A beat passes. Another. Then the boy nods and Noctis breathes out again. The grin that steals over his face this time is in no way intentional. 

Splitting the camp between two sleeping spots requires a moment of work; people ducking in and out of the tent to change clothes, sleeping bags migrating onto rock and extra blankets being dug out for their guest. All the while, the boy stays in his position by the fire, watching them flow around him, looking like he wants to help but not daring to make a move. 

Ignis is the one who squeezes his shoulder gently and says, “It’s quite alright, we were the ones who invited you after all. Just enjoy the fire.” 

Eventually, they have it figured out. There’s a thin blanket spread over the haven floor, and a slightly thicker one on top of it for the boy. Noctis’s sleeping bag is unzipped, and he’s hoping that if it gets too cold he might be able to squirm close enough to throw at least a little bit of it over the boy’s skinny form before he freezes. Probably wishful thinking that he goes unnoticed, but Noctis really doesn’t have much practice in any other kinds of thinking to begin with. 

Gladio yawns widely, cracking his back. “Alright, I’m off. Behave yourself, kids,” he says, ducking into the tent before Noctis can give a snappy retort. 

“Remember what I said,” Ignis says. “If you need anything -” 

“I’m right here, Iggy,” Noctis says. “He can ask me.” 

Ignis smothers a smile. “Goodnight,” he says, and follows Gladio into the tent. 

With the fire banked low, the camp is cast in just enough light to see by, if you strain. Noctis flops down on the bunched blanket, and it’s only weeks of sleeping on rough ground that keeps him from wincing. “C’mon,” he says, stretching out. “We kinda woke you up this morning. You must be exhausted.” 

The boy stays where he’s standing for a moment, staring down at Noctis. One hand is fisted in his shirt and the other briefly brushed his side where his gun usually hangs. Noctis almost wishes they could have let him keep it, but it was one thing for Gladio and Ignis to let him sleep out here with a boy that only just barely knew was (probably) not dangerous, and another thing entirely for that boy to have a _gun._ He’d handled the gentle confiscating of it better than Noctis would have thought, honestly. There’s a seed of trust in there that Noctis can only hope they can encourage to flower, if they’re allowed to try.

“Hey,” Noctis says, voice low. “If it’s too much, I can sleep in the tent with the others. If you - if that’d make you feel better.” 

With only the shadows to see by, the thin angles of the boy’s face seem almost metallic in the moonlight; white-pale and almost unnaturally sculpted. It makes Noctis dizzy to look at for a moment and he blinks, chasing the image from his head, and when he opens his eyes again the boy has moved, on his hands and knees slowly crawling into the space beside Noctis. There’s a generous gap between them still, but it’s probably the closest he’s been of his own volition since they found him, and surely that means something. 

“Here,” Noctis says, reaching out to heave the spare blanket up and over his skinny shoulders. The boy blinks at him, and suddenly Noctis feels awkward. “So you don’t get cold,” he explains.

One of the boy’s hands is curled beneath his chin, his fingers furled so that Noctis can see all the tiny scars that run like ribbons across his skin, as if he’d put his hand through glass. He wonders how many more scars like that he has. Too many, surely; an unending array of silver on pale canvas. 

Silence stretches for a moment, the both of them just looking at each other, and then Noctis says, “You know, I don’t know if you … if you can’t talk, or just don’t feel like it, and either one is fine - you don’t ever have to say a word if you don’t want to - but fuck, I really wish we at least knew your _name.”_ The boy blinks. Noctis think he looks surprised, although it’s hard to tell. “Do you _have_ a name?” 

He doesn’t really expect an answer but a foolish part of him is hopeful anyway. The silence persists, lingering and sleepy, stretching out until it grows too heavy in the middle. Noctis sighs, rolling onto his back. He’d mostly been bullshitting, but the stars really are nice out here. He’d never gotten a view like this in the city. And to think, all it’d cost him to see it was his whole damn life. “That’s fine,” he says. “If you have one or if you don’t. So long as you know that we don’t want to hurt you. That’s all I wanted to tell you, anyway.” 

He closes his eyes. An ember pops in the fire pit, soft and warm, and then somebody says, “Prompto.” 

Noctis’s eyes snap open. Slowly, he turns his head to look beside him. “What did you say?” 

The boy’s eyes are very bright, skin silver in the moonlight. “My name,” he says, voice so quiet Noctis almost misses it. It’s raspy too, like the last time it was used was sometime before the Wall fell. “It’s Prompto.” 

Noctis stares for a moment and then he smiles. “Prompto,” he says, and the way it falls from his tongue sounds _right._ “I like it.” He rolls over, hoisting himself up on an elbow so he can stick a hand out, still grinning like an idiot. “Hi, Prompto. I’m Noct.” 

Prompto glances to his palm and then up again. He seems so uncertain that Noctis is sure he’s going to leave him hanging, but then, tentatively, he reaches out and slowly his scarred fingers wrap around the back of Noctis’s hand.

His grip is loose, like he’s terrified of hurting him, but his touch?

That, Noctis discovers, is _warm._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter: @doingwritebyme  
> tumblr: glenflower

**Author's Note:**

> I am posting an ongoing ffxv fic in the year of our lord 2020, and I'm not sorry about it. (the working title of this fic before posting was just "feral prompto au" so do with that what you will.)
> 
> twitter: @doingwritebyme  
> tumblr: glenflower


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